


Let Me Romance With You

by EmAndFandems



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, Fluff, It's about the 6000 years, Love Confessions, M/M, The Author Regrets Nothing, Valentine's Day, shakespeare is subtly quoted once, the author talks about her favorite themes again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22836295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmAndFandems/pseuds/EmAndFandems
Summary: Valentine's Day is coming up. Crowley makes a comment. Aziraphale accepts the challenge.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 90
Kudos: 245





	Let Me Romance With You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Queen's "I Was Born to Love You." I know this fic is a week late but real life (inconsiderately) got in the way, so I offer you this slightly-belated holiday story. <3

"It's February," says Crowley, extremely casually.

"Yes," says Aziraphale. "Well done, you've learnt the months of the year."

Crowley sulks and wraps his arms around Aziraphale from behind. He decides to abandon subtlety. "You know what's coming up, then? Valentine's."

Aziraphale hums, pleased. "That's always nice," he says.

"One of mine, that," Crowley adds, now that he's wiggled Aziraphale into praising it.

The arc of Aziraphale's back stiffens. "Oh, you did  _ not," _ he says. Crowley presses a smile into indignant shoulder blades.

"Did too. Well, not the initial bit, the martyrdom and whatnot. And not the actual sentimental gooey stuff; that was all more the Other Side’s department. But the commercialized pap? The aggressiveness of all the pink an' red marketing? The stress of not knowing what to buy or forgetting the date—yeah, that's me."

"Hmph," says Aziraphale. "That does sound more plausible."

Crowley laughs. "Took ages to convince Them it'd be dreadful, but here we are. Got my funding, ground the feast of a saint into the— er, the ground, I guess..."

He frowns and the sentence devolves into mumbling. Aziraphale clears his throat. “Well, I knew you couldn’t have invented the holiday, because that was one of  _ mine,” _ he says.

“No,” says Crowley, disbelieving. “ _ You?” _

“And why not?” Aziraphale folds his arms. Crowley slinks his way around to see the front of the defensive angel. “I’m perfectly capable of influencing humanity too, you know.”

“‘Course you are,” says Crowley soothingly, and then ruins it with: “S’just the thought of  _ you, _ inventing  _ romance—” _

“Crowley.” Aziraphale takes a step closer. “Darling. What…  _ precisely…  _ are you implying?”

Crowley will not be intimidated. Or distracted. He huffs. “Only you’re not exactly the sort of person who comes to mind when people think of romance, is all. I brought you a bouquet the other day and you told me flowers would attract the wrong sort of attention to the shop.”

Aziraphale purses his lips. “They  _ would,” _ he protests. “Customers  _ like _ floral decorations and I simply will not tolerate their enjoying being in; that is  _ not _ the purpose of my shop.”

“Collection,” Crowley corrects, with a grin, because he knows Aziraphale will fuss over it and he wants to see the color rise in Aziraphale’s cheeks as he gets riled up. “Not much of a shop really.”

“How terribly rude of you,” says Aziraphale. He pouts. Crowley knows it’s for show; he knows perfectly well that Aziraphale is only putting on the offended act for his sake. But he’s quick to brush a kiss onto Aziraphale’s forehead anyway. (Because he’s a romantic.)

“Alright, call it what you like,” Crowley grumbles. The effect is only slightly spoiled by the softness of the smile slipping through the scowl.

“Hm.” Aziraphale smiles back, teasingly, and places his hands on Crowley’s shoulders. He tips his head. “So… tell me more about this idea you have of my not being romantic enough.”

“Did I say that?” Crowley says. “Gosh. Erm. Can’t imagine where you could’ve gotten that from.”

Aziraphale prods his arm. “From your own forked tongue. Out with it.”

Instead, Crowley leans closer and buries his face in Aziraphale’s neck, kissing the spot just beneath his collar. “Rather not,” he mumbles, “m’busy.”

Aziraphale sighs. “I suppose the onus is on me to prove myself to you, then. Very well.”

“Wait, angel—” Crowley surfaces. “You don’t h—”

“I know,” Aziraphale says quickly, taking hold of Crowley steadily by the waist, “I know I don’t have to, Crowley, but I’d like to.”

“Oh.” Crowley’s face brightens. “In that case, by all means, don’t stop on my account,” and he goes back to kissing his way along the soft skin of Aziraphale’s throat and beneath his jaw.

“My dear,” breathes Aziraphale. “Oh, my love. My  _ Crowley.” _

It isn’t fair, Crowley thinks. It is absolutely unfair that of all the endearments in the world his name should sound the sweetest. It shouldn’t, but it does. It does. “Yes,” he whispers into the warmth of Aziraphale;  _ yes, I’m here,  _ like the Biblical prophets of old when their names were called;  _ yes, I’m yours. _

Aziraphale runs trembling fingers through Crowley’s hair and considers his words carefully. He wants to strike the precise balance, hit exactly the right notes, make this offering perfect and pure.

“I could quote things for you,” he murmurs.  _ Hush, please, let the moment live. _ “Trail through history and borrow the very best phrases. Pick and choose until I found the exact right words to tell you. And I would be good at it, you know; I really would. This shop’s older than any human who’s stepped foot in it for the past hundred years or so and  _ I’ve _ been reading for ever so much longer than that. Forget the classical canon: I could tell you lines of poems that have been lost to the ages. Lyrics gone forever but for my retention of them, ballads that went unrecorded and have been unspoken for centuries. I could recite the ancient rites of societies long since crumbled. I could whisper in your ear all the love songs ever composed, my beloved, my sweet.”

Crowley has gone still in Aziraphale’s arms. Aziraphale traces a hand along Crowley’s spine and they’re swaying in place, almost dancing, almost hearing the echoes of the songs he’s invoking. Aziraphale presses a kiss to Crowley’s temple before continuing, low-voiced against attention-flushed skin.

“There are thousands of humans who have tried to put these feelings to words, of course.” He pauses to smile. “We have been here so very long, my dear. We know this. And I have loved you longer than I knew it, even; I loved you before I knew what love was and I will love you after I forget everything else in the world. So if I were to take pre-written words and repeat them, I would be saying their love is as… as  _ overwhelming _ as ours. As all-encompassing, as worlds-spanning. Since the beginning of time we have had one another, Crowley, and past the end of it. What human can claim the same? What secondhand verses can say all that? Hm. No. I’ll have to do it on my own, I think.”

And now Crowley stirs; he twists his head to make eye contact with Aziraphale, to see the delicacy with which he is being watched. To catch the look of protectiveness and happiness and yes, possessiveness.  _ This time is mine, _ says the look,  _ this bliss is mine; it is ours, and nothing can take it from us. _

“Now,” Aziraphale says, still quiet, still performing for his audience of one, “how do I put into words what you mean to me? My Crowley. Oh, I love you. My chest aches with the fullness of my heart. Do you know, I’m not sure I’m technically in possession of a soul, but I don’t know how else to explain the way you make me feel. Down to the depths of me, Crowley, deep into my essence, you’re there. All the way through. Written on the inside of my ribcage, pressed into my fingerprints. I don’t know who I would be without having loved you, but I can’t imagine I would like that angel. I like the me I become with you because you’ve made me in your image.”

Crowley shakes at the blasphemy, just a little, enough to convince himself it was a passing chill and not the aftershocks of an eternity of chasing faith and doubt coming to a shuddering halt. There is only one thing to believe, now, and he’s wrapping comfort around Crowley at the moment, bringing golden words like prayer, and he’s here. He’s with Crowley. He’s perfect, and he’s safe, and they’re together. Crowley closes his eyes.

And Aziraphale continues. “I know I said I wouldn’t be derivative, darling, but would you mind a quick excursion into some turn-of-the-century musings?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Which century?”

Aziraphale beams. “Nineteenth.”

“Don’t know why I asked,” says Crowley, still very small in Aziraphale’s embrace, still leaning in for dear life. “Not sure you know the twentieth happened, let alone twenty-first.”

“You’re interrupting.” Aziraphale tsks. “Not to mention I have incorporated  _ plenty _ of newfangled technology into my life.”

“A rotary phone and a thirty-year-old computer,” Crowley says, smirking. “Yes, bravo on your—your total immersion in the modern world.”

“Would you like me to go on, or are you intent on mocking my lifestyle choices for much longer?” says Aziraphale.

“Bit longer,” decides Crowley, but Aziraphale shushes him very effectively by covering Crowley’s mouth with his own.

Aziraphale pulls back. Crowley groans. “I’m going to go on,” Aziraphale says, “and you’re going to listen.”

Crowley blinks, wide-eyed. “Mm. ’kay. Yup.”

One of Aziraphale’s hands comes up to stroke Crowley’s cheek with love-generous fingers. “You  _ will _ be listening, won’t you, my dear? I’d hate to waste a good speech.”

“Ghk. Course I will,” says Crowley, and closes his eyes. “Can’t risk being smited for getting distracted, and angel, you’re a very good distraction.”

Aziraphale pauses. “Oh, go on, then.”

Crowley opens his eyes and shows off a brilliant diabolical smile. “Yeah?”

“I’ll tell you I love you, you’ll show me: all will be right in the world,” says Aziraphale. “Also, I’d like to see your gorgeous eyes.”

“I’m blushing, Aziraphale,” says Crowley, to deflect from the fact that he absolutely is blushing, and then he resumes putting his lips to every bit of skin he can reach.

“Ah.” Aziraphale exhales. “So. The nineteenth century. Yes. I had the shop already, you know, and I was befriending some writers, some clever thinkers. You were off sulking, I think.”

“S’possible.” Crowley shrugs. “I sulked a lot back then.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale agrees, “and so there was this term that was going around quite a bit at the time. The sublime. Very into that; ask any art history student.”

Crowley doesn’t tell Aziraphale to get to the point. He listens. He waits. He has had a lot of practice at the latter; it is no challenge now, when he knows he has what to wait for, when he knows Aziraphale will give him what he wants. Patience is so easy.

“The sublime, you see, is meant to be this… almost transcendental experience. The feeling of awe, of being overpowered by the emotion of the moment, of finding a sense of insignificance in the face of something beautiful or terrible. The sublime is a too-much-ness.” Aziraphale shivers at Crowley’s kiss to the corner of his mouth. “That’s what love is, I think.

“I know I love you because it’s like staring into the ocean knowing it could drown you. Like witnessing a volcanic eruption from the next mountain peak over and feeling the rumbles beneath your feet. I know I love you because imagining life without you is harder than picturing a day the sun didn’t come up. All the emotion the world has ever channeled into art—paintings or poetry or prose, anything, any expression of absolutely anything—at its root it is love and that is all there is. Love is everything, Crowley, and I love you, and so you are my everything.”

“When you said you were going to show me you were a romantic,” Crowley says faintly, “I didn’t think you meant capital-R.”

Aziraphale laughs. “They said it best, I think,” he tells Crowley, but Crowley shakes his head. “You disagree?”

“You did,” insists Crowley, “you do, those stuffy old book men had nothing on you, you’re—”

“Oh don’t cry!” Aziraphale traces a thumb along a wet cheekbone. “No, you mustn’t cry, that’s not what I wanted. Oh, Crowley. I’m sorry.”

Crowley sniffs. “Don’t ’pologize. Aziraphale…”

“Yes.”

“You know I’m not much for words,” Crowley says. “An’ don’t try and argue here, I never have been. It’s alright, I don’t mind, mostly. But then you come round and say things like  _ that _ and… All I’ve ever done is muck things up. Words and phone systems and Valentine’s Day. S’all I know how to do. But you deserve more’n that, angel, you deserve better, better than—”

“Now don’t you finish that,” Aziraphale says sharply. Crowley falls silent, but Aziraphale can read his worry in the crease of his forehead. “None of that, please, darling. You must know that isn’t true.”

Crowley mumbles something incomprehensible, ducking his head. Aziraphale sets a finger beneath Crowley’s chin, asking without words to meet his eyes.  _ You don’t have to hide from me. _ Crowley looks.

“Crowley. Love, light of my life. Do you think I use words like these lightly? When I say  _ I love you, _ I mean it; when I tell you  _ more than words can wield the matter, _ I mean that too. And when I show you over and over again that you are all I am ever going to want, I… I’d like for us to reach a point where that could be something you can believe.”

Crowley shifts his weight from one leg to the other. “S’just… hard. You’re—you’re  _ you, _ and I’m just—look, I know I’m not s’posed to want you and I’m  _ definitely _ not allowed to  _ have _ you.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says, “oh, I wasn’t trying to blame you. We have been through so much. I know it is hard. I know it will be hard. But we have time.”

“Yeah.” A deep breath. A lowering of shoulders and of walls. “Hm. Time. Still February.”

“Valentine’s,” agrees Aziraphale.

Crowley brings one of Aziraphale’s hands to his lips and presses a delicate kiss to patient fingers, to an open palm, to a steady-pulse wrist. “Not ruined?” An apology for demonic interference with the purity of a divine creation, an apology for doing his job, an apology for being who he is. He swallows the  _ sorry _ that tries to crawl up his throat and settles instead for gazing at Aziraphale with guilt-heavy eyes.

“Never,” whispers Aziraphale, and the burden lightens, “never, Crowley.”

Aziraphale kisses Crowley for all the times he couldn’t. To say all the things that can’t be spoken, to remind them both of what they have now (of what they will always have, now). Together they are more; they are together and they can do anything they want. This world is theirs, to have and to shape.

Valentine’s Day, after all, was a joining of efforts. A union. An act of love.

**Author's Note:**

> I am once again asking for your validation... Please leave a comment! I would love to hear from you.  
> Find this fic on tumblr [here](https://lazarusemma.tumblr.com/post/190952791411/let-me-romance-with-you)!


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